Jessie, too, often wondered how she had ever lived and been happy without her grandfather and grandmother, and “Sunnyside Cottage,” and the garden, and the flowers, and her own rose-bush.  At first she had thought a great deal about her mother, and wondered when she would come for her; and every nice new thing she had she wanted her to share, and every flower she had she wanted to save for her.  But she saved them so often, and then had to throw them away dead, that at last she ceased to do so; and by and by, as the months passed, she grew accustomed to enjoying things without her mother; and at last she gave up wondering when she would come.  In fact, for some time before she gave up expecting her, Jessie had begun to hope that when her mother did come, she would not want to take her away with her, but would live there always with herself, and granny, and granp.

Of her father’s coming she never spoke but once, and that was when, with a frightened face, she said to her grandmother, “Granny, if father comes for me you won’t let him take me away with him, will you?” And granny had reassured her with a sturdy—­

“Why, bless your heart, child, your father isn’t likely to want you, I can tell you, and he wouldn’t dare to come here and show himself to me, I reckon; don’t you be afraid, now, granny’ll take care of you.”

So Jessie tried not to be, and as the years went by, and nothing was heard from either of her parents, her fears lessened, though she could never think of her father without a shudder of dread lest he should some day come to take her away.

Three years had passed peacefully away, and Jessie was about eight years old when the next letter from Lizzie came to her parents.

Jessie never, to the end of her life, could forget the morning that letter reached them.  It was a wet, dark November morning, and she had been lying awake for a long time listening to the patter-patter, swish-swish of the rain pouring against her window.  She had heard her grandfather go down and open the front door as usual, and light the fire in the kitchen; then she heard him fill the kettle at the pump and put it on to boil.  After that he went out again to open the hen-house door, and carry the hens their breakfast.  She heard her grandmother go down the stairs, and a few moments later she heard heavy footsteps come splashing up the wet garden path, and very soon go down again.

Jessie got up and dressed herself, and made her way down.  She had been singing to herself while she was dressing, so had not noticed anything unusual in the sounds and doings below stairs.  But as she went down she did notice that the house seemed very quiet and still, and that there was no smell of breakfast cooking.  Usually at this time her grandfather was busy in the scullery cleaning boots and knives, or doing some job or other, while her grandmother bustled back and forth, talking loudly, that her voice might reach above the frizzling of the frying-pan.  But to-day there was a strange, most marked silence, broken only by the singing of the kettle, the plash of the rain outside, and a curious sound which Jessie could not make out, only she thought it sounded as though some one was in pain.